Rustic Tomato Soup

This is dinner for day two of the 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart. The menu called for Rustic Tomato Soup, mixed salad greens with Red Pepper Vinaigrette, and a piece of sourdough toast.



Rustic Tomato Soup, mixed salad greens with Red Pepper Vinaigrette, and toast.

Surprisingly, the store had to sourdough so I had a slice of 12 grain bread. This was a loaf that I had had, and when I looked at the ingredients I saw milk on the list. Technically this is non-vegan bread, but I just couldn't in good conscience throw away a perfectly good full loaf of bread. Besides, in the study where Dr. Campbell fed rats a diet of 20% casein (milk protein) and 5% casein, those who ate only 5% in their diet saw their cancerous tumors begin to receed. I don't think a tablespoon of milk is going to kill me.

Tonight's dinner was fabulous, and much less of a hassel than day one. The tomato soup consisted of onion, garlic, diced Roma tomato, water, fresh thyme, freshly ground cumin, salt, and pepper simmered together until the tomatoes broke down. At that point I added half a cup of rice and let it simmer on low for 25 minutes. Super easy, right? The only problem I had was that there wasn't any liquid left when the rice was finished cooking, so I had to stir some water back in. I had to be quite heavy on the salt as well. I would definitely make this again, maybe with a little more tomato and a little less rice.

Rustic Tomato Soup

The vinaigrette was also very simple. I tried out the food processor again, and thankfully it only leaked a tiny bit. I think we may need a new one... Anyways, I put one roasted red pepper, one clove of garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, and two tablespoons of red wine vinegar in the food processor and let it go until it was as fine as I thought it would get. The dressing was still a little pulpy--I think it would have been better as a puree. I'm not a huge fan of red bell peppers, so I don't think I would make this too often, but it was pretty good.

Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette

I went ahead and made the full batch (two servings) of soup because I knew I would eat the leftovers at some point. This turned out to be so filling that I couldn't even finish my salad either. Another winner!